Blame
Courtesy of Andrew Hetherington’s blog, I came across an animated short made by cartoonist Chris Ware and animator John Kuramoto for This American Life. (Unlike Jen Bekman, I actually love the sound of Ira Glass’s voice.) The short is an animated version of a true story, told to Ira by Jeff Potter, about how people change when they’re behind a camera, even a fake one.
I know the point of the video—beyond the humor of kids forming their own news crews—is that we become heartless voyeurs, more interested in photographing people than in helping them. The way I see it, though, the kids on the playground who were “filming” their classmate get beaten up probably weren’t kids who would’ve jumped in to stop the fight in the first place. Maybe they would’ve watched from a distance or ignored it. Or maybe they would’ve just crowded around and watched, as kids usually do when a fight breaks out. But it wasn’t because they had “cameras” that they didn’t jump in to save the kid who was being pummeled.
We are different when we have cameras in our hands. But plenty of photographers are actively engaged in helping the same people they photograph. Check out this photo of Magnum photographer Christopher Anderson carrying a Lebanese woman out of the rubble, during the conflict between Hezbollah and Israeli forces in August 2006. (Click here to read an article about photojournalists rescuing trapped civilians in Lebanon. Note: I first saw this photo and got a link to this article here, on Alec Soth’s blog.)
Bottom line: Cameras are not to blame for our inhumanity—we are.
P.S. I just received my copy of NIAGARA from photo-eye. Oh, man. Also, click here for an American Photo interview with the incomparable Taryn Simon.
I know the point of the video—beyond the humor of kids forming their own news crews—is that we become heartless voyeurs, more interested in photographing people than in helping them. The way I see it, though, the kids on the playground who were “filming” their classmate get beaten up probably weren’t kids who would’ve jumped in to stop the fight in the first place. Maybe they would’ve watched from a distance or ignored it. Or maybe they would’ve just crowded around and watched, as kids usually do when a fight breaks out. But it wasn’t because they had “cameras” that they didn’t jump in to save the kid who was being pummeled.
We are different when we have cameras in our hands. But plenty of photographers are actively engaged in helping the same people they photograph. Check out this photo of Magnum photographer Christopher Anderson carrying a Lebanese woman out of the rubble, during the conflict between Hezbollah and Israeli forces in August 2006. (Click here to read an article about photojournalists rescuing trapped civilians in Lebanon. Note: I first saw this photo and got a link to this article here, on Alec Soth’s blog.)
AP Photo/Hussein Malla
Bottom line: Cameras are not to blame for our inhumanity—we are.
P.S. I just received my copy of NIAGARA from photo-eye. Oh, man. Also, click here for an American Photo interview with the incomparable Taryn Simon.
Copyright © 2007 Liz Kuball
Labels: Alec Soth, Andrew Hetherington, books, Christopher Anderson, gallerists, interviews, Ira Glass, Jen Bekman, photographers, radio, Taryn Simon, This American Life
posted by Liz at 11:14 AM
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